I feel sick - solicitor has been negligent. Please help!

MissMoneypenny

eira wrote: »

2)Law Soceity helpline is initially very helpful-but beware the difference between what constitutes poor service vs negligence. If it's 'poor service' the Law Soceity can make the solicitor put it right if it's 'negligence' they'll cheerfully tell you to 'go to court'.

I found The Law Society exceptionally helpful. I had several phone calls with them regarding my solicitor's negligence and they even pointed out things I had missed. They dealt with it all for me and I received compensation from the solicitor. When the solicitor appealed the amount (and so did I), The Law Society came down in my favour again and I got even more money. Apart from my time, it didn't cost me any money.

Isn't it worth giving them a call and see what they advise?

Vincenzo

Very interesting post.

I too am in the middle of a similar kind of dispute, although to do with a right of way. To cut a VERY long story short, my conveyancer failed to inform me of a right of way over what I was led to believe was my driveway. I bought the proeperty 5 years ago and now the person who benefits from that right of way is claiming my car blocks it and has threatened to issue proceedings. It turns out this is not included in my title at all!

Fortunately I had legal insurance, although they are VERY slow. Family Plus is the policy and I have to say I canNOT recommend them. It took months to finally get a panel solicitor and they regularly ignore my correspondence. They now look likely to say that the policy does not cover the costs of 'establishing that I have a case'.

I was wondering if there are lawyers out there that will take on a professional negligence claim on a 'no win, no fee' basis? I think I have a claim in the region of £20k. Help?

foreversummer

Hi Vincenzo

Sorry to hear of your problems. There are solicitors who do 'no win no fee'. I saw some when I did a google search. There is one in particular based in London I particularly remember.

Hi Missmoneypenny

Thanks for your post. I have also found the Law Society to be very helpful and they spent a lot of time on the phone with me. They did say however that you have to allow 28 days for your solicitor to deal with your complaint and then they can look at it for you. However, they told me they can only deal with cases of poor service not negligence - if it is negligence then only another solicitor can deal with it, they cannot. Interesting that they helped you with a negligence case. Can you post a bit more information.

Hi Trobbe

Yes, I quite agree with you. Hubbie and I both keen to speak with the owner of the land, certainly before going down the Adverse Possession route. We have told our solicitor this. Our solicitor told us that he agrees and would favour a more 'softly softly' approach to trying to sort this. I guess we are just waiting now to hear what our solicitor comes up with, then we cannot decide our course of action from there.

Foreversummer

foreversummer

Sorry, why is it that a post always looks right when you preview it, then when you click submit reply you see all the mistakes . . . !

Last sentence should read "then we can decide our course of action", not cannot.

Foreversummer

eira

Thanks Miss Moneypenny. I have been to the Law Society - and they did find in my favour-said it was a 'horrific case' (this was the solicitor who oversaw it). I was awarded £460 compensation in the end but the losses are far greater than this. It was ruled that the 'solicitor had acted outside her competence'.
Have now gone back to them again and they are still helpful but it is now firmly in the negligence camp. They have given me guidance but they are limited in the action they can take financially and procedurally.

It wasn't until I took up the cudgels myself that I found out the extent of the mess the solicitor had made. Most recently I found out that she hadn't even bothered to register a maintenance order in the US. This has resulted in ex -hubby going underground owing thousands in child support. Luckily the US authorities have ways of getting the money but it takes forever and there are ways of hiding the money. After all the fuss of the massively expensive divorce I found out that he had been married all along (and not just to me). The detail indicating this were ignored/not understood by the barrister who charged £15500 for 'tax advice' that was freely available from company literature and the Inland Revenue advice line ! If I hadn't got the documents I wouldn't believe it myself !

Loretta

foreversummer wrote: »

Many thanks for your replies.

Nicki, I take it from your post that you are a solicitor and I am heartened by your comments.

Our solicitor has told us that he is now investigating why more information was not forthcoming from our vendor and their solicitor. He has also told us that he is arranging for a surveyor to scale the land so that we can have a better idea of the actual size of the land. He has promised us that he will come back to us very shortly. Hopefully he will be able to resolve the matter. He has told us that we could go down the Adverse Possession route but he favours a less harsh approach to this.

Have you any tips on finding a good solicitor to take on our case if necessary. Is it best to find a local one or one a little further afield? I've also noticed that there are solicitors who specialise in in suing other solicitors.

I think we are now over the intial shock of it all but we are just trying to keep abreast of the situation and try to understand everything as much as possible.

Foreversummer

Please do not rely on finding a solicitor to take on a case of negligence against another solicitor, this is not going to happen. You may see in the yellow pages etc that some firm's do act in cases of professional negligence and some say solicitor's negligence but what they don't say until you have been through the whole of the list, maybe running into 100 phone calls that they actually act for the solicitor who is being sued for negligence, not a person, these solicitors entire legal fees are covered by their insurance and they have several hundred thousand available to them to the extent that they can take a case right through to the house of lords on appeal for a claim of £400 against them, no normal person can win against this sort of money even if they can find a solicitor to act for them which you will find impossible, no one has several hundred thousand pounds to spare to spend, up front, like this and they know it.

I can give details of cases if you are interested. No solicitor local to you will even give you an appointment id they know what it is about they all close ranks.

The Law Society is not there to help you they are there to cover the backside of any solicitor who has made a mess of things or even acted illegally, commited a serious criminal offence They are incredibly inefficient or obstructive.

My solicitor was given a prison sentence and had his name removed from the Roll for his criminal activities, google 'solicitor on supplying heroin to his client in prison 2002' if you want the details. The police gave up telling his employers and The Law Society that they thought he was up to something and caught him red handed giving a syringe full of heroin to his client in a police cell.

If you make a complaint to the Law Society first of all they will not receive your letter, then they will wait 18 months to allocate your file to someone who will look at it. My solicitor after he had been arrested, his name was struck off the Roll and his Practising certificate was withdrawn, they cannot be employed as a solicotor after this, continued to work for his firm for another 31/2 years before he was sentenced to prison. It is also an offence for a firm to employ a solicitor in these circumstances but the Law Society have done nothing about it. Even though this solicitor messed up, as has previously been said they can deal with bad service but not negligence.

The Law Society will string you along until you run out of time. You will not find a solicitor to take you on on a 'no win no fee' basis, this is for accidents etc not for solicitor's negligence, they do not have to take the risk it is much more profitable for them to act for solicitors, there are thousands every year in trouble with unlimited money to spend, they do not have to bother with you or for what is right. If you ask your solicitor for the name of their insurance provider they are legally obliged to tell you but they won't tell you and the Law Society, who made the rule, will not do anything about it.

Please do not presume that your solicitor's firm will comence the complaint's precedure which is laid down by the Law Society or that the Law Society will help you if they don't. If you want to do anything involve the press, as I have done.

If, of course the solicitor who has commented on here and is so sure that loads of solicitors are just queuing up to help, offers to help himself on a no win no fee arrangement just to see that justice is done it would be very helpful but don't hold your breath!

amcluesent

>It is very hard to see how the owner could possibly make use of it.<

As a ransom strip, as in holding you to ransom to buy them out to allow you to sell the property without an ongoing dispute. Your vendors must have been ecstatic when your solicitor failed to pick up the dispute.

eira

Thanks Loretta-you post echoes my experience-I was trying to be fair but I am totally on your side in this.

I think that when solicitors do mess up they mess up mega big time-and they know that essentially they are untouchable. You tend not to be believed -and as I said in my other post if I didn't have the documentary evidence I twould think I'd made it all up. Even reading it through it sounds mad. I haven't found anyone to take it up. Local solicitors have said that the solicitor in question is a 'highly respected family lawyer'. When I questioned the barristers bill I was treated like a heretic 'no one has EVER asked council for a breakdown'. .It obviously just wasn't the thing to ask for a fee breakdown. As I said I got the information for the price of one e-mail and a phone call-so where did the £15500 come into it. He did bill the Legal Aid Board for taxis across London and first class rail travel to court !!

Nicki

I'm sorry that eira and Loretta have had problems but these are not typical.

On what eira has said, her case did sound as though it was outside the area of expertise of most common or garden matrimonial solicitors who would not also be familiar with US state and federal law too. They may have declined to act because they felt they didn't have the expertise to do so. So far as the £20,000 quote goes, solicitors charge by the hour, and it would take a lot of hours to read and analyse 3 blanket boxes of documents, but less if eira weeded out the many documents she admits to be wholly irrelevant!

No idea on what she posted why Loretta had problems. All I can say is that I am a solicitor and have never known any of my colleagues in any of the firms I have worked for to have had any problems at all in acting for clients who claim their previous solicitors were negligent, nor have I had a problem doing so. The only reason I can think why local solicitors may be leery is if they have now, or have in the past, had business dealings with the person you want to sue, in which case they may have a conflict of interest.

To find a good solicitor, rely on personal recommendation. You will be looking for a firm who does both conveyancing and litigation as you will need expertise in both areas. If no personal recommendations, ask the Law Society, who will recommend 3 in the appropriate area.

Nicki

eira wrote: »

When I questioned the barristers bill I was treated like a heretic 'no one has EVER asked council for a breakdown'. .It obviously just wasn't the thing to ask for a fee breakdown. As I said I got the information for the price of one e-mail and a phone call-so where did the £15500 come into it. He did bill the Legal Aid Board for taxis across London and first class rail travel to court !!

Well this is rubbish to start off with. Both solicitors and Counsel regularly have their bills scrutinised by taxing masters to determine whether they are fair. You should have been told in your letter setting out terms and conditions of your right to this, and I am amazed Law Society didn't tell you. You are probably out of time to request it now though.

As for taxis and first class travel, this is fine if he was working to prepare your case at the time. You can't work on a clients case in second class or on the tube in case someone sees the papers but can do so in the privacy of a single seat in first or in a taxi. Otherwise, you would be charged the second class fare but also a lesser hourly rate for travelling time when all the lawyer was doing was listening to his ipod and reading the paper, from which you would get no benefit.